Rattling Bones
by Cumberbatch Critter
Summary: James Moriarty is the ghost that haunts Sherlock's every sunny day - and all of the other ones, too. [TAB spoilers. Set immediately following HLV, leading into TAB. Canon drug use.]


**Rattling Bones**

 _"You once called your brain a hard drive, well, say hello to the virus." - James Moriarty_

* * *

 _"Oh, for God's sake! Make up your mind!" Sherlock complained. "Who needs me this time?"_

 _"... England."_

It was certainly problematic, Sherlock thought. He ran his fingers against the strip of paper in his pocket, and stared at the window of the plane. He didn't see beyond it, lights and pictures flickering across his vision. The drugs were not easily explainable, asides from the fact that he was about to go on a mission where he would have ended up dead anyway. The one cold comfort, he supposed, in being a user, was that no one was going to expect a logical answer for the drugs to begin with.

But enough of that. There was a bigger problem at hand. Moriarty was back. It was impossible. It was impossible and yet... the plane was making preparations to turn around, as the high ran through Sherlock's body, and Moriarty was alive and well.

Wrong.

But no. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be true. Sherlock Holmes had faked his own death. James Moriarty was his equal.

And could he ever be rid of him?

Bad enough was the idea that Moriarty occasionally still danced through his mind in between the downtime and the shoot ups. Sherlock could not let him go. Moriarty was his crowning achievement; the golden trophy in his case. He had bested Moriarty, he had finally placed the chains upon him, closed the door to the padded room, and walked away with a smirk on his lips and his head held high.

He hadn't cared about receiving recognition for all of that. He had cared about finishing his game with Moriarty and being the one to emerge victorious. He had done what he had done to save his friends, and to take Moriarty away from the civilization that would only be hurt by him, but it was also a personal victory.

Moriarty had been his greatest puzzle.

He had finally put the last piece down, only to have the whole thing turned over.

After their confrontation at the pool, Sherlock had been startlingly aware of what Moriarty was capable of and what he might do. That hadn't gone absent from his dreams - nightmares, perhaps - or the niggling thoughts that came to him in the silence: _what is he doing now? what is he planning?_ Like a ghost in the shadows, he hadn't been able to pin down exactly where the consulting criminal was or what he was doing.

Part of him knew he had let Moriarty walk free just as a distraction. Entertainment. And part of him had ended up regretting that.

Moriarty continued to haunt his thoughts when there were no cases: _what did you let out? is it something you can put the lid back on?_ , insofar as appearing in Dartmoor, Sherlock's mind taking the hallucinogenic fog and twisting it into his yet unsolved (biggest) case.

And then the fall had begun.

He hadn't expected the lengths of which Moriarty was willing to take, but in the end, it hadn't mattered. Alive was preferable, but dead was just as well. He could not hurt John that way. He could not hurt the rest of his friends, or his home, or disturb his life any further.

It had been fun while it lasted, but Sherlock had turned the key in the lock to the back room in his mind palace where Moriarty would reside.

Or... _had_ he? Because Moriarty was back, according to Mycroft, and according to the video playing on a continuous loop across all of England. Moriarty was back, and he was _laughing at him_.

 _You got played, Sherlock. The skeletons in your closet_

 _don't_

 _stay_

 _dead._

Skeletons, and ghosts, and the rise of who had so clearly fallen... it reminded Sherlock of case... long ago. Two hundred years ago, in fact, when a woman dressed as a bride had committed suicide only to be revived and kill her own husband. Fascinating, the similarities... the 19th century versus the 21st century... how would have he approached that case had he been there, he wondered...

Flickers of the 1800s filled the pane of the window. Sherlock blinked and they vanished, replaced with clouds and sky, and yet... a travelling cape and a pipe instead of a trenchcoat and a cigarette, John with that ridiculous moustache and a bride shooting down a crowded street with intent to kill others, and then herself...

If he were there, he would need to see the body, in an old dark morgue with the London fog swirling outside its creaking doors...

How had Emilia come back, if she had come back at all? There was no such thing as ghosts - except the ones you created yourself. So how...

 _how_...

He needed to go deep, deeper still.

Sherlock's fingers fell away from the list in his pocket, hand lolling over the armrest of the seat.

* * *

 **A/N: Well, I wanted to write something touching on the opening quote because it was such a poignant quote how Sherlock must feel in relation to the Moriarty case - especially after Mycroft calls him on the plane to tell him he's _back_. I didn't quite manage what I intended again, but the narrative drags me, not the other way around. xD**

 **I do not own _Sher_ _lock_. Thanks for reading!**


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